


Copied

by Soulstoned



Series: Duplicates [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A whole pile of dead clones, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Season 8 compliant, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21584497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulstoned/pseuds/Soulstoned
Summary: After learning that two clones survived the destruction of the cloning facility, Shiro goes to the wreckage to see it for himself. Keith follows him.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Duplicates [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557670
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Hurt Comfort Flash Exchange





	Copied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



Shiro steps out of his ship and approaches the wreckage of the facility. It feels eerily familiar despite the fact that he has never actually been here before, at least not as himself.

He left in a hurry after receiving a call from Matt warning him that two clones of himself that had been working with the rebellion are returning to Earth now that the war is over. Matt thought it was only fair to give him a heads up. 

The clones had intentionally kept out of his path until now, not wanting to risk distracting him while the war was at its peak, but with Haggar defeated and everyone coming together to rebuild, they are ready to step out of the shadows and into society.

Shiro has broken shards of memories of this place from the clone whose body he inhabits, pieced together somewhat by conversations with Keith after the fact. He never considered the possibility that there might be survivors.

Five years have passed since the facility was destroyed, but it looks like it could have happened yesterday. Something about the atmosphere on the planet’s surface where everything crashed down has prevented decomposition. Shiro expected to find bones here, not dozens of freshly dismembered corpses all wearing his face. Seeing bones would’ve been easier, he thinks. 

Most of them look peaceful at least, like they have no idea what even happened. Others are lying there with their faces twisted in agony. One has crawled several feet away from the broken cylinder he must have been grown in. Shiro wonders if this version of himself would’ve had a chance if he had been found right away and not left here on an inhospitable planet with no one around who could help him.

As he imagines what it must have been like to climb out of the cylinder after the crash, surrounded by dead and dying clones of himself, to fight to free himself from the wreckage only to succumb to his injuries anyway, he knows he has something new to have nightmares about. He hopes for the sake of this clone that it had at least been fairly quick and not drawn out over the course of hours or days.

Shiro isn’t sure if the intact tubes are better or worse. The thought that even more copies may be alive in there is terrifying. The two clones who have likely already arrived at the garrison are more than enough.

He isn’t sure what he hoped to find here. He sinks to the ground next to an intact clone. The rocky ground is uncomfortable but he isn’t ready to leave just yet. He feels like he should be doing something, but he has no idea what. Hours pass before he hears footsteps approaching. He swivels around almost expecting to come face to face with himself, but instead he sees Keith.

“I was afraid I would find you here,” Keith says, giving him a concerned look as he reaches out his hand to pull him up.

Shiro takes his hand and pulls himself up from the ground. “I tried not to think about it, we were so busy that I didn’t really have the time to dwell on the facility and what happened here. Now all I can do is think about it. The images from that day won’t leave my head.”

“Being here can’t be good for you, let's go home. We’ll figure out something to do with this place, and you don’t have to be involved,” says Keith.

“How many of me does the world even need?” Shiro asks, looking around at the nearly twenty intact tubes scattered around on the ground. “If these clones are viable, it feels wrong not to give them a chance at life, but what kind of life is it going to be as part of such a large matched set.”

“If you were a clone and your last memories were from your time in a galra prison, what would you want to have happen? The other two clones think we should attempt to wake them, but you’re the original, this is your call.”

Shiro takes a deep breath and looks around. “The dead should be buried. The living should be released somewhere far from here, one at a time, by someone familiar. They’re going to have a lot of questions, and I don’t expect this to be easy on any of us.”

“If it helps at all, the two that got out of here seem to be doing okay. They made a life for themselves with the rebellion after they found Matt during the three years we skipped. They knew they weren’t the real you, but they still wanted to live and find ways to help,” says Keith.

“You met them?” Shiro asks, surprised.

“Only briefly. Matt told me about them right after he told you. He thought you might need me around when they arrived, but when I got to Earth they were there but you had left.”

“I took off as soon as I hung up the phone, I still don’t think I’m ready to meet them, but maybe someday,” Shiro says.

“There’s no rush, they’ll understand,”

Shiro snorts, “I guess nobody understands me quite like me,” he says bitterly. “Aside from you of course.”

“Let’s go home, this mess has waited five years, it can wait a few more days while we work out what to do.”

“Thank you for being here,” Shiro says.

“Of course I’m here,” Keith says, pulling Shiro into a tight hug. “I wouldn’t dream of making you go through something like this alone.”

\---------

It doesn’t get much easier over the next few weeks as crews go out to retrieve the cylinders housing the surviving clones and bury the rest. Shiro struggles to sleep at night remembering the sight of the destroyed clone facility. Knowing that he caused that destruction and the death of so many copies of himself. He wakes up almost every night from nightmares about clones who are angry at him for killing them or wanting to take his place as the “real Shiro.”

He wonders if he really is any more the real Shiro than they are. The real Shiro died years ago, this Shiro is a ghost living in a corpse. Maybe it would be better for one of the others to take over. In a low moment late one night he voices this fear to Keith who holds him tight and reassures him that nobody would want that. Keith spends the next few days barely letting him out of his sight after that.

He still hasn’t met the copies that are awake and on Earth, but he does know they were thoroughly examined by both Allura and Pidge and came up clear. With Haggar gone, there was little need to worry, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Despite assurances from those that have met them that they don’t hold any ill will against him, he still can’t face them knowing the conditions they had to wake up in. They only survived because they were able to take the ship his first clone landed in before his final fight. The fight that led to that led to both that clone’s demise and his own resurrection. 

Tonight he is lying awake in bed thinking of tomorrow when the first of the clone pods is going to be opened. He helped come up with a plan to make their arrival as easy as possible. They are going to be released one at a time and greeted by Matt and Keith, who will talk them through the situation and catch them up to speed on current events on Earth and throughout the universe then give them options on how to proceed and the space to figure it out. If it goes well with the first one, the others will come into the world the same way.

Shiro isn’t really even sure what “going well” would look like in this scenario. 

He feels an arm tighten around his waist. “Are you still awake?” Keith asks sleepily.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. You should get some sleep, you have a busy day tomorrow,” Shiro says, rolling over to face him.

“It’s a big day for you too, I’ll be fine.”

“I’m just thinking about what it’s going to be like to have so many of me around and wondering how the others are going to deal with this. If we’re all the same, won’t they be unhappy that I’m the one living the life they want?” Shiro says.

“I’ve been avoiding showing you this, but I think it might help,” Keith says as he sits up and grabs his tablet off the nightstand and flips to a picture taken a few days ago of the two clones standing side by side and grinning at the camera.

Shiro expected to see two exact copies of his younger self, but the clones in the picture look not only different from him, but also from each other. One has long hair hanging loose around his shoulders and a prosthetic leg from the knee down on his right side. The other looks closer to his younger self, but closer examination reveals a tattoo running down his left arm in a language that Shiro doesn’t even recognize.

Keith points to the clone with the prosthetic leg and says “This is Ryou. He thinks your arm is hilarious and he keeps telling Jiro that limb loss is a constant and he’s next.”

“How did he lose it?” Shiro asks in concern.

“Infection I think, but that isn’t the point. The point is their starting point may have been the same as yours, but for the past few years your experiences have changed you in different ways. Jiro picked up an interest in medicine after tending to Ryou and was a field medic for the rebels. Ryou had a hard time keeping up on the ground so he stuck to flying. Their experiences are so far removed from yours that they’re their own people now. I’m sure the others will be the same, but even if they aren’t, I wouldn’t trade you for any of them,” Keith says, putting the tablet back on the nightstand.

“Thank you,” Shiro says. “I know I’ve been difficult lately, but I couldn’t do this without you.”

“You know I’ll always be here for you when you need me. If any part of this gets too hard, just say the word and we’ll take off. You can stay with me on Diabazaal and we’ll let Matt deal with the rest of them,” Keith says, pulling the blankets back around them both and slotting himself against Shiro’s chest.

With that promise in mind, Shiro closes his eyes and finally drifts off to sleep.


End file.
